


since the flood

by digits_of_phi



Category: Lancer (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Dissociation, Existential Angst, F/F, Female Character of Color, First Kiss, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Loneliness, Names as Identity, Original Character(s), Original Lancer Character, Romance, kinda? just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digits_of_phi/pseuds/digits_of_phi
Summary: the rise and fall (and fall and fall and fall) of 47, knight of the realm
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Mech Character, Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 4





	1. before (age eighteen)

**Author's Note:**

> (title from Ophelia by The Lumineers)  
> this is presented more or less without context so here goes... my character for this Lancer game is named 47, nicknamed Sev, a fighter and mechanic who travels around the world of Mirror in her enormous, immensely strong mech named JACK. before that, though, she was Elizabeth Tanaka, the daughter of a noble family in the influential Guild City, who was pressured to join one of the factions running the city at a young age. she did what she was told, out of duty to her family and her genuine desire to help people. for a while, she excelled. she even fell in love with Kailah, a beautiful and brilliant mechanic who taught her how to repair mechs. but when she found out what her faction was actually doing to her city under the veneer of "order", she snapped. she ran, fled her love and her family and her duty and even her name, renaming herself 47. she swore herself to defending the good in the world, to striking down evil and corruption. she's still working on that part, past her anger and resentment.

“We’re going to get in trouble!” My voice rises nearly into a whine, but I bite it back before it can get too loud. Besides, though, I don’t mean it. I’m not exactly accustomed to breaking rules, and there’s a thrill in it that I hadn’t expected, something alive and electric beneath my skin. I’m not allowed to be wandering the base past curfew. This time, breathing this night air with this hand in mine, is something stolen. Something that belongs to me. Beneath the guilt at that realization is a flicker of avarice that I push away but can’t quite extinguish.

“Oh, come on.” Kailah’s eyes glitter like diamonds in the faint light coming through the windows. She grins, fearless and challenging, and for a moment, I forget the guilt. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Tanaka.”

I meet her gaze, hoping that mine can look half as challenging. “I’m not scared of anything.”

“Oh yeah?” She tilts her head to the side. “Then why won’t you tell me your first name?”

My smile falls. My will is always the first to break in our little contests. “I don’t like it,” I reply, sounding like more of a petulant child than I should.

Kailah’s eyebrow rises, a hypnotic arc. “I bet I would.”

I shrug, turning half away, unable to take my attention completely off her. “Where are we going?”

In my peripheral vision, I see her expression soften. “I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine. You’re the one who’s kidnapped me, so where are we going next?”

“You’re impossible,” she groans, her grin returning. “We’re not far.”

“Where are we going?” I press.

“More fun if it’s a surprise,” she replies, reaching a hand towards me. I glance over, finally, as her hand hesitates an inch away from my shoulder. Her eyes glance up towards mine as if asking permission, and I nod. As if she had never faltered, she loops her arm through mine, drawing me closer, my elbow against the warm curve of her waist. With this little light, I hope she can’t see me blush.

“Then lead on,” I reply, resigned, unable to stop myself from smiling.

Kailah pulls me along— which feels right, I think, she the fearless and quick-witted leading the way and me the steadfast and loyal following in her wake— through hallways that seem transformed with the dimness of night. The Order doesn’t keep lights on in the barracks at night— no one is meant to be wandering the halls at this hour, after all, and it’s a waste of energy— and so everything feels foreign, lit uncertainly by the familiar glow of neon lights from outside, but Kailah navigates with a completely predictable surety. I lose track after a while, but she leads me eventually to a small staircase, tucked in the corner of a hallway that I could swear I’ve never seen before.

“Do you trust me?” she asks, turning towards me, her arm falling out of mine and her eyes glowing in the darkness.

I don’t reply for a moment, not because I mistrust her but because I forget that I have to say it out loud, that perhaps to her it doesn’t just go without saying. “Of course.”

She reaches out a hand and I take it, easy as anything aside from the way that the warmth of her slim, callused hands nearly sends me into cardiac arrest, and she leads me up the staircase. The darkness surrounds us completely, but I can hear a key enter a lock, can hear a knob turn.

The door opens and I’m dazzled by light, overwhelming after the darkness of the stairwell and the barracks that led to it. I blink and wince and, blinded, I follow through the door as Kailah pulls on my hand. We’re outside, I know, from the way the air hits my face cold and with the familiar stench of machines and industry and life that is so perfectly, quintessentially Guild City. I breathe, blink, and the world comes into focus around me.

We’re on the roof. I didn’t think we were able to access the roof, but given the ring of keys that Kailah is spinning idly on her finger, no one is able to keep her away from what she wants for long. I pity any locked door in her way.

I tear my eyes from her for what feels like the first time all night and look around; I can’t help but do a slow circle to take everything in, as the cold wind whistles past me and, not for the first time, I miss my hair fiercely. We’re on the roof, and the entire city is sprawled beneath us. I’ve never been one for vertigo but my head goes light and dizzy at the sight of it, of the skyscrapers glittering around us, of the coal-black ribbons of streets winding so far below that the reality of life down there feels abstract, of clouds tinged with smoke drifting seemingly low enough to touch, of the night sky dark and endless above us and the world of the city vibrant and glowing around us.

I close my eyes and breathe and for a moment, for a beautiful and glittering moment, I belong here.

“Hell of a view, huh?” 

I blink as Kailah walks up beside me, close enough to touch. I glance over at her and her eyes are fixed on the sky, her chin tilted in an elegant line upward, her expression the clear, thoughtful one that made me want to follow her anywhere. “I like to come up here when everything gets too loud. I can only have my head up a mech’s ass for so long before metal is all I can see or hear or smell.”

“Thank you for bringing me here,” I reply, struck by the casual, monumental kindness of the gesture.

She shrugs, turning towards me. I turn towards her in tandem, drawn like a magnet. “You looked like you needed to breathe too. Earlier, I mean.”

“Oh.” I’d almost forgotten. The guilt curls in my stomach again, like a snake warmed by the sun.

“Tanaka.” She crosses her arms over her chest, her hands running over her bare arms. She must be cold. “I’ve… I’ve watched you spar a lot. I’ve never seen you lose focus like that. What happened?”

I shrug off my coat and drape it over her shoulders, which she accepts with a sweet and quizzical smile. I’m lost in thought as I do. What to tell her?

“The person I was sparring against,” I say finally, trusting her to finish the thought.

“Dawson?” she prompts, making a face. “God, they’re _such_ an asshole. One of my friends works on their mech, and he says they’re the most entitled fuck he’s ever met. Did they say something to you?”

“Something like that,” I reply. In reality, though, Dawson hadn’t said much. They didn’t need to say much. The way they walked into the ring, so self-assured, so buoyed by their own privilege and power, so _sure_ of the way the world revolved around them. The way I _recognized_ them, from the parties my parents threw, a grinning pale face in the periphery of every social event, the fact that they’ve seen me forced into a dress and a name that have never felt like mine. I forget, sometimes, that I’m not the only one here who is here because of a family name. 

I’m good at fighting. I’ve always been better at fighting than befits a young lady of my station, according to my mother. I’d been winning my bout against Dawson handily— after all, of the two of us, I’m the only one here for a _reason_ — until in a moment of respite, they said my first name and the shock of it, the way it landed on me like a blow, sent me reeling long enough for Dawson to land a few hits and end the match.

It was humiliating. It took everything in me to to look Dawson in their grinning face and shake their hand, to leave with my dignity intact. I didn’t think anyone had noticed. I should have remembered that Kailah notices everything.

“It was stupid,” I admit finally, and it’s gratifying to watch Kailah’s eyes widen in protest. “You’re right. They’re an asshole, and I let them get me off guard. It won’t happen again.”

“It might,” Kailah says quietly. “You’re still human, Tanaka.”

I shiver as the wind bites across me, colder without my coat. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t.”

“Don’t say that.”

I hadn’t _meant_ to say that. I fish for something to say, a way to change the subject, when Kailah reaches out a hand, her eyes asking me permission again. I hesitate but nod.

She takes my hand in both of hers. My hands are larger and harder, calluses across my palms, scrapes across my knuckles. They haven’t been a lady’s hands in a while, but Kailah holds my hand like it’s made of glass. My chest seizes, my heart pounding in strange fits and starts in my chest, as she looks up at me with this deep, endless earnestness that I’ve only ever seen when she talks about mechs.

“Don’t say that,” she says again, eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted. “Everyone here, even the ones I like, they’re caricatures. They’re here because their fathers wanted them to make a name for themselves, or their mothers didn’t want to put up with them anymore. They’re entitled and selfish and… and cruel, Tanaka, they can be so cruel. You’re the only one who gives a damn about anyone but yourself. You’re the only human one here. I can’t let you lose that.”

“It would be easier, though, wouldn’t it?” The truth spills out of me, like she’s cast a fishing line down my throat. “To stop caring.”

“It would be,” Kailah admits. “But I don’t think you’re the type to take the easy way out.”

I snort, shaking my head. “No, I’m relentless in making things more difficult for yourself.”

“I don’t ever want you to change, Tanaka. You’re… shit, you’re perfect the way you are, no matter what those other assholes want from you. You hear me?”

“I always hear you,” I reply, and I hadn’t really meant to say that out loud either, but I watch Kailah’s eyes widen and I don’t regret it. “You’re… you’re good, Kailah, and strong, and brilliant, and kind. You’re like a beacon.”

Kailah blows out a long breath, shaking her head. “You can’t just _say_ that to people, Tanaka.”

I smile. “Why not?”

She shrugs, glancing back up at me. “A girl might get ideas.”

My heart thumps in my chest, hollow as a drum. Maybe the light-headedness wasn’t from vertigo after all. “Ideas about what?”

She grins, and I could swear that she almost looks bashful. “You know. About the beautiful girl saying beautiful things to me in this fairly romantic setting.”

My heart swoops in my chest like a bird. “And what if I want you to… get those ideas about me?”

"I'd ask what kinds of ideas you have about me."

I steel myself and say probably the bravest thing I’ll ever say. “That you want to kiss me as badly as I want to kiss you right now.”

“I don’t know, how badly do you—”

“Kailah.”

“Fine!” She laughs, and the sound carries over the rooftops, over the city. “You’re going to have to bend down a little.”

Her lips are soft. They taste like the coconut lip balm she lent me one afternoon. My arm wraps around the small of her back, under my coat, her skin warm through the fabric of her uniform, my other hand reaching up to delicately cup her cheek. Her hands slide up my arms to my shoulders, holding me closer than I’d imagined two people could get. 

She is warm, her skin, her lips, as warm as I’d imagined, the warmest I’ve ever felt. I close my eyes and lose myself in the warmth, in the security of her closeness, in that strange and fleeting moment of belonging.

We part for air, eventually, reluctantly, and Kailah stands on her tiptoes to rest her forehead against mine and I bend obligingly down. Her hand cups my cheek, mirroring my hand on her face. “I think I’m a little bit in love with you, Tanaka,” she whispers, as if she can’t say it any louder, as if this is another secret to tuck into the cage of my ribs and keep for my own.

I could say it back. An ordinary person would say it back, but neither of us are anywhere near ordinary and I think she already knows. Instead, I turn my head and press my lips to the lines of her palm. “Elizabeth,” I whisper back, not able to say it any louder, handing it to her like the secret it is.

“Elizabeth,” she echoes on a soft exhale, and when she says it, it doesn’t sound like it belongs to Dawson or my mother or my grandmother or any of the long-lost ancestors of my family’s storied past. It feels like it has only ever been mine.

“Only for you, though,” I tell her, just in case she didn’t understand.

She sighs and kisses me again, briefly, softly. “God, you’re something else. I think I’m a _lot_ in love with you, Elizabeth.”

I say it this time. “I love you too,” I say, and it is painless, and the words as they pass my lips bring light to something inside me that’s been dark for a long time.

“Kiss me,” she says, more plea than command, and I can do nothing but oblige.

Kailah’s hidden blankets up on the roof, she tells me, after the two of us are too flushed and shaking too hard to hold one another upright anymore, a nest that she buries herself in when the world turns metal-hard and cold and sharp. I lay her down on the blankets and her curls frame her head like a halo and as we hold each other, skin to skin, lips pressed to skin to muffle our voices, I find peace here too.

Later, much later, our bodies curve together like two halves of a moon. My hand draws circles on the bare skin of her back and she sighs contentedly, nuzzling into my neck. We ran out of words a while ago but as she brushes the pads of her fingers across my face as if she’s trying to memorize it by touch alone, I know what she means.

We’re not allowed to be here. This is breaking more rules than I can count, and there will be consequences if we’re caught. But this moment does not belong to my parents or to my superiors or to Guild City. It is mine, entirely mine, and I shelter it carefully in my chest as Kailah and I fall asleep in the same shared breath.


	2. after (age twenty-six)

“There.” I lean against the reassuring bulk of JACK’s chassis. The metal is still warm after our long day of travel, and it’s cool enough to touch now. I point into the sky, towards a sinuous alignment of particularly bright stars. “That one’s my favorite. Before I… saw the stars for the first time, one book that I read called it the Tributary, for the way it splits off from the larger grouping of stars there. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but I found another book calling it the Serpent, for… well. That one is a bit more self-evident. One star map I found called it Konpira, after the guardian kami of fishermen, though that seems a bit… grandiose for my taste. And when I first saw it, I was in a very certain frame of mind and I called it the Scar.”

The two of us are sitting outside of our campsite. My campsite, really, in spite of all the nice pretenses of togetherness: even if JACK lived, breathed, slept, it would be too large for my small, threadbare tent. The desert unfurls around us, blank and rippling in every direction, the moons and stars glittering in a dazzling display above us, the wind around us and whipping the sand into new patterns with every breath. It’s a beautiful display. None of it feels quite real.

I glance up at JACK. After all this time, I think I still sometimes expect it to reply. It is large and warm as I lean against it, but I cannot allow myself to become mistaken: it is metal, constructed and scrapped together by my own hand. I am speaking into an echoing hollow of my own brain.

“Anyway.” I can’t help but continue. On nights like tonight, the sound of my own voice is the only thing that feels real. I am the last living thing left in the empty universe. It’s just me and the stars and my mech. “I… enjoy things with so many names. You know that, don’t you? You only have the one, but you have to share it with me. I’ve had too many names, I think.” And my hand falls, as always, to the reassuring metal of my right leg, to the swooping grooves of the number engraved in my prosthetic calf. 47. 47. 47. The name that belongs to me, the name that I chose for myself, stole for myself, tooth and claw and defiance. 47. 47. 47. Sev to the people who earn the right to see me without my mask, who are becoming fewer and farther between. 47. 47. 47. 

“I don’t know that I’m a person anymore, JACK,” I admit to my mech, silent and unmoving above me. My voice drifts away from me, into the waiting night, but it’s all right because there is no one left in the universe to hear me. “I feel… like a handful of… of sand. A handful of sand doesn’t have to… have to think about stupid human things like eating or where I left my first aid kit or scraping sand out of your joints. A handful of sand doesn’t care when innocent people die, when people dance like puppets at the whims of the wicked people holding the strings. A handful of sand doesn’t… doesn’t have to get into fights and take blows for people who don’t even know her name to feel  _ normal _ . A handful of sand doesn’t have any name.”

JACK creaks above me. I’m so far away that I can hardly hear it, but I lean my head against the metal chassis and breathe, force myself to breathe. “You’re right,” I murmur. “You’re right. I’ve never been the type to take the easy way out. She was right about that, if nothing else.”


End file.
